Constructing Heimat in Postwar Germany: Longing and Belonging

by Chris Wickham

Finding the abstract concept Heimat to be much stronger than the English home, Wickham (German, U. of Texas-San Antonio) examines the semantic structure of the term and the conscious attempts to manipulate that structure by writers in West Germany and adjacent regions during a quarter century of social and political flux. He then uses that semantic analysis to explore how poets writing in dialect and singer-songwriters worked with the components to construct revised conceptions of Heimat from the economic recovery of Germany after World War II to the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The text is double spaced. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

"Chris Wickham is Chichele Professor of Medieval History, and Faculty Board Chair 2009-12.

I have been at Oxford since 2005. Previously, I was Lecturer (1977), Senior Lecturer (1987), Reader (1988), and from 1995 Professor of Early Medieval History, University of Birmingham; and I was an undergraduate and postgraduate at Keble College, Oxford, from 1968 to 1975.

I am a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and a socio of the Accademia dei Lincei."